


M-Theory

by plingo_kat



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plingo_kat/pseuds/plingo_kat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"M-theory (and string theory) has been criticized for lacking predictive power or being untestable."</p>
            </blockquote>





	M-Theory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jamesraoulsilva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesraoulsilva/gifts).



> This is for [jamesraoulsilva](http://jamesraoulsilva.tumblr.com/) for the 00silva gift exchange! I hope you like it.

**DIVERGENCE EVENT DETECTED: DIVNODE 0001**

“What should we do, ma’am? Shut it down?”

“Yes, of course. It’s in our bloody servers, isn’t it? Stop it before it can finish decrypting. And see if we can get that hard drive back.”

“Ma’am.” Tanner speaks into his earpiece. “Shut it down and evacuate all non-essential personnel. Tell Q-branch to run a trace.”

Two hours later, they find the explosives.

 

**EXTRAPOLATING… PROBABILITY 93.7%**  
 **FUTURESTREAM 0001.007.0197**

James looks out into the night. Moonlight plays over waves and sand, silver and blue and soft. It only highlights the shadows.

The bartender sets his drink in front of him: strong, cheap whisky, in a scratched glass that hundreds must have handled before. The firelight of the torches on the beachside bar fractures within the liquid as he swirls it, making it dance.

He grimaces a little at the burn in his throat, harsh enough to remind him that he’s still alive. Drink and sex are his methods of choice for—

Well. For anything.

“Hello.” The stranger (blonde, dyed, dark eyebrows; vaguely Hispanic; well-built; non-aggressive) slides easily into the stool next to James. James nods a friendly but dismissive greeting. He doesn’t want a conversation.

But the man sidles impossibly closer, perched precariously on his stool, until their knees brush under the wood of the bar top.

“Mr. Bond.”

James finishes his whisky before turning around. His glass hits wood with a sharp _crack._ The stranger is smiling at him from beneath hooded eyes, a look that should be appealing but instead jolts up James’ spine like a whiplash: shouting _danger, pain, danger!_

“Who’re you?” He keeps a finger on his glass. It can be thrown; the chairs they are sitting on can be kicked out from under a ~~man~~ threat; James has a switchblade in his pocket. He’s not drunk enough for anybody less skilled than he is to notice.

“James, James,” the man clucks, disapproving. “So suspicious. My name is Raoul Silva. And I am here to tell you…”

He smiles, baring straight, white teeth.

“Your country needs you.”

 

**EXTRAPOLATING… PROBABILITY 39.2%**  
 **FUTURESTREAM 0001.007.0204**

James throws the glass. Silva ducks – they fight, and James realizes quickly that he won’t win. Not with his weakened shoulder, his dulled reflexes; being dead has done him no favors.

They trash the bar-slash-beachfront drink stand. Silva pins James with a hand crushing his windpipe, and

**PROBABILITY DROPPING… 15.9%**

kisses him, biting sharply down on his lip and drawing blood

**…13.1%**

and James bites back, fighting to breathe and choking instead, fingers digging into the skin at Silva’s wrists, trying to locate a pressure point—

Spots swim in front of his eyes—

 

**PROBABILITY BELOW ACCEPTABLE THRESHOLD, RECALIBRATION INITIATED.**  
 **EXTRAPOLATING… PROBABILITY 58.7%**  
**FUTURESTREAM 0001.007.0209**

“Your country needs you.”

“No.” James turns away again, signals for another drink. “Whatever you want from me, the answer is no. Tell her I’m done.”

“Oh, I’m not from M. I. Six.” He drawls the name, rolling each syllable around in his mouth like fine wine. “Hardly! James – can I call you James? – James, I think that we have gotten off to the wrong start. Let me buy you a drink, and you can hear me out. Hm?”

“No.” James is willing to keep refusing all night if he has to. Perhaps Silva can see that, because he sighs dramatically and stands.

“I see I cannot convince you,” he says sorrowfully, and shakes his head. “Such a shame, such a shame.”

Then he pulls out a gun and shoots James twice in the chest.

“Sorry, Mr. Bond.” He kneels down in James’ blood, red creeping its way up through the expensive fabric of his trousers. “But you are much too dangerous to leave alive. Double-ohs always are.”

James coughs, gasping for breath. One of his lungs has collapsed. Silva presses the muzzle of his revolver to James’ temple.

“Goodbye, James.”

He pulls the trigger.

 

**SUBJECT TERMINATED. FUTURESTREAM INVALID. REACALIBRATION INITIATED.**  
 **EXTRAPOLATING… 86.1%**  
**FUTURESTREAM 0001.007.0213**

James isn’t quite sure why he consents to follow Silva back to his boat – yacht, really, it’s so luxurious – but he does, and has no particular regrets about doing so. He’s provided with a room, several suits that look like they will be disturbingly well-fitted, water, more scotch, and assurances that Mr. Silva will be by to speak with him soon. James inspects the suits for anything untoward, takes a shower, drinks a glass of water and pours himself some scotch. As he sips he wonders: is Silva an agent from M? And if so, why hasn’t he mentioned her yet? M knows that he’s as much loyal to her specifically as the abstract idea of Queen and country; she _is_ in many ways, the lunchpin of MI6. Everybody who is important, who has worked in the shadows, who has worked for _her_ , knows who she is, how she is; knows that in some way, they love her.

James, he acknowledges with a salute of his glass, loves her (and hates her) more than most.

Silva chooses this moment to knock and walk into the room. He has changed into a white and cream colored suit. In the warm, dim glow of the sodium lights, he looks like Lucifer.

“James.” He stands politely in front of James, hands open and relaxed at his sides. “Do you mind if I call you James?”

James gives a noncommittal grunt. Silva smiles.

“You must have questions. May I?” He gestures at the bed James is sitting on, and steps forward before James can refuse. James considers breaking Silva’s arm as he sits down, but discards the idea quickly. “Ask away. I shall do my best to enlighten you.”

“Who are you?” It’s the question that has been on his mind the most, even if it’s not the most important one.

Silva laughs. “Very good! Very predictable. Well James, I am you. I am you from ten years ago.”

“If you would start making sense,” James suggests mildly. He snags another glass from the table and offers up his bottle of spirits. At Silva’s nod, he begins to pour.

“I was known back then as Tiago.” Silva leans back on his hands. _“She_ \- I’m sure you know who I am talking about – had sent me off to Hong Kong. I was her best agent. Not unlike how you were her best agent, hm?”

He glances at James from under his lashes, sly. “I stayed there for eight years, before I was captured. Tortured, by the Chinese. And she never came for me. She never came.” He swirls the alcohol in his tumbler. James takes a sip of his own drink, not particularly affected; he has heard and seen worse, and Silva is nobody to him. His shoulder twinges, though, in a phantom echo of that misguided, authorized shot.

“I faked my death, as you did, and decided to live my life free of her. And so I have, until now.”

“Because of me?” James raises an eyebrow. “I’m flattered.”

“Oh no, no.” Silva laughs again, and James realizes what it is that irritates him about it: the voice is a little too high, a little too sharp. It’s the laugh of a man skirting the edge of madness.

James knows all about madness. People on one side or the other are predictable. Normal, even. Somebody skirting the edge, now, they’re dangerous. Most double-ohs walk the fine line that allows them to be so good at what they do: kill without qualm, seduce without care, lie without flaw. When they miss their footing and fall towards the other side of sane, well.

James has killed targets he once called friends. And now he is dead, and capable of anything.

“Because of _her_ ,” Silva breathes. “Somebody is targeting MI6. Revealing a list of international agents from a stolen hard drive. Your work, I believe?” His voice is light, innocent, free of blame – and therefore mocking.

“If you’ve been living life free of MI6, why come out and help now?” James hasn’t been ignorant of how Silva never refers to MI6 as an organization, how he is eerily focused on M. He knows obsession when it slaps him in the face. Silva is, knowing or unknowing, a massive hypocrite. He hasn’t been living free of M at all.

“Because I love her, and you love her.” Silva shrugs. “And you hate her, and I hate her.”

James goes very still.

“And if anybody is going to kill her, it will be us. Not anybody else.”

Silva isn’t looking at James anymore. He’s staring off into the distance, through the yacht’s walls at a future only he can see.

“Yes,” James says.


End file.
